lowlife
lowlife Lexical Profile
lowlife Game Scores & Validity
• noun
A disreputable, dishonest, or morally contemptible person, such as a criminal or scoundrel.
"Only a complete lowlife would steal charitable donations meant for the local shelter."
Disreputable or criminal elements of society collectively, or a lifestyle associated with them.
"The novelist's early stories vividly depicted the gritty lowlife of nineteenth-century port towns."
• adjective
Characteristic of or relating to disreputable, dishonest, or morally base people.
"The detective spent years investigating lowlife criminals operating in the city's underground markets."
Word Nuance & Usage
The plural of the countable noun is almost always "lowlifes" rather than "lowlives," as the compound refers to people characterized by a base existence rather than multiple literal lives.